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Chowder
Chowder is an Emmy-winning American animated television series which ran from November 2, 2007 to August 7, 2010 on Cartoon Network. The series was created by C. H. Greenblatt, a former storyboard artist on SpongeBob SquarePants and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. The title character is a chubby young 10 year old (9 years old in Season 1, and 12 years old in episode "Old Man Thyme") child named Chowder (often referred to as a cat, bear, rabbit creature), an apprentice to a chef named Mung Daal, who owns a catering company serving the fictional Marzipan City. The show combines traditional animation with live action, stop motion animation, and puppetry. Reruns of the show can be seen on Cartoon Network. Production During his time working on Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants, Greenblatt had been sketching various characters for his own animation series concept. Greenblatt originally based the premise on the idea of the sorcerer's apprentice style of story, such as The Sword in the Stone. The plot devices were modified so that the story revolves around a master chef who teaches his young apprentice how to cook. Chowder himself was developed with no specific species in mind, but rather with the intentions of invoking the image of a child's soft squeeze toy. Some of the inspiration comes from Richard Scarry, with other inspiration from Saturday morning cartoons. Shnitzel was created originally as a personal character design exercise in the late 1990s. Once Greenblatt pitched the concept to Cartoon Network, it was about two years before the series was approved for production with another year in production before the pilot episode aired. Greenblatt estimates he spent about seven years working on Chowder before the show made it to air. Episodes are produced in seasons which consist of 20 half-hour episodes. Each episode is produced with a 30 second puppet sequence that is meant to run over the ending credits. Cartoon Network chooses not to air the puppet credit sequences, but starting on September 3, 2007, episodes have aired the puppet segments. Episodes can be purchased from the iTunes store in the United States which are delivered with the sequences as are episodes which are available on Cartoon Network's VOD website also within the United States. One of the unusual design features of the show is the patterns used on the characters' clothing or skin. The patterns are developed as a full screen image and then sent to the production house where the characters are modified to fill the patterns in over the character clothing. Using this technique, when a character moves, their patterns do not follow, but display as a "static" background. A similar technique was used in the Monkey Island video game series and the Mr. Bean animated series. The show is also known for the very wide variety of media used in various episodes. These include animation using watercolors and ink & paint in addition to the cartoon's classic pattern style. It also uses stop motion animation with real food, action figures, and clay; live action scenes with the voice actors of the show, and puppets; both marionette and hand controlled. This was also sometimes used in Courage the Cowardly Dog. It boasts one of the most diverse varieties of mediums used in any single series. Characters *Chowder (character) *Mung Daal *Shnitzel *Truffles *Panini Category:Cartoon Network Category:Chowder Category:Cartoons Category:Mark mara